Everyone seems to relish the idea of sailing round Ireland. Indeed, such is our appreciation of it that it all seems to mean different things to different people. To start with, how far is it? Time was when you’d be told around 720 miles. Then Wicklow Sailing Club, organisers since 1980 of the biennial Round Ireland Race, did what they thought was precision measurement, and came up with the figure of 704 miles. Then somebody else did the tabulation with even newer instruments and electronics, and came up with the doleful news that it was actually 698 miles – the demotion below the magic 700 miles was painful. But now it has become worse again, as the number quoted on Tom Dolan’s publicity output for his current multi-definition Round Ireland challenge is 688 miles.

We know that all parts of the Irish coast are suffering from varying level of erosion, and some of it is quite marked. But a supposed reduction of the national territory’s recognised circumference by around 32 miles in the space of half a century makes you wonder just what is going on, and who is really in the know?

PRIVATE MEMORIES OF SAILING ROUND IRELAND

For there have long been those who sail round Ireland and don’t really talk that much about it because, for them, their memories speak for themselves and are something that should be privately cherished. And then there are those who love the idea of sailing round Ireland but never quite get around to it, yet there are times when they talk of little else.

Back around 1978, the late Michael Jones of Wicklow was starting to work on the idea of the Round Ireland Race, and he invited me down to the town to discuss ways of promoting it. His plan was a clockwise race from Wicklow “round Ireland and all her islands except Rockall”, which back in the late 1970s seemed a potentially contentious territorial claim. But as the British Army has several times since used participation in the Round Ireland Race as part of training programmes, we presume they’re happy enough to live with this assertion. And as the Scots tend to claim Rockall with more vigour than anyone else in their usual dulcet tones, we note that the Scottish boat Tanit won the Round Ireland in 2014 without a word about the matter. 

INISHTRA WHERE?

But the abiding memory of that 1978 meeting – apart from Michael Jones’ hearteningly passionate belief in the potential of his home town – was the evidence of how little local sailors know of distant aspects of the Irish coast. So when I asked him if he was going to allow participants to take the safer passages inside the Black Rock in Mayo, and also inside Inishtrahull, his first response was: “Where or what is Inishtrahull?

Inishtrahull at Malin Head may be unknown in Wicklow, but those who have been there know that the safer passage is inside this most northerly of Ireland’s islands

It’s an attitude which has persisted in some quarters. When the World Sailing Speed Records Council was defining the Round Ireland course around 2005 or so for their approved times from the Kish Lighthouse off Dublin Bay, they effectively binned all the record times set in the Round Ireland Race with its Wicklow start. And then in trying to define the course with precision by taking the mandatory turning points from the positions of the strategic Irish Lighthouses, they made a monumental boo-boo in showing unawareness that at one of the most dangerous areas of all - the Blasket Islands with their theoretically most westerly mark at Inishtearaght Lighthouse - there’s a very significant hazard further out to seaward nearby, in the unmarked yet splendidly named Great Foze Rock.

THE GREAT UNKNOWN GREAT FOZE ROCK

Thus when Lloyd Thornburg in August 2016, with his Mod 70 Phaedo 3, was making his successful anti-clockwise challenge, the superb vid made a feature of the fact that Phaedo went between the Great Foze and Inishtearaght. The resulting images so perfectly capture what sailing can be like off the Blaskets that everyone lived with this. Nevertheless, just to be sure to be sure, on April 1st 2017 Afloat.ie was happy to announce that Phaedo has in fact sailed outside all the islands of Ireland except Rockall, as the Great Foze Rock had been ceded to Portugal and was now internationally recognised as part of the Azores Archipelago.

Glorious! Phaedo 3 making speed off the Kerry coast on a routing which had taken her inside the Great Foze Rock

Admittedly that came to an end when the 2017 April Fool’s Day setups became invalid at noon. But it did further highlight the fact that in terms of precise sailing records, the Round Ireland situation is a bit of a mess, made no easier by the fact that since 2006 or thereabouts, the Irish Coastguard has made it clear that sailing singlehanded for any significant distance within Irish coastal waters is illegal, as the ancient regulations maintain that there must always be a living breathing human being on watch – alarm-set radar and AIS aren’t though to cut the mustard.

DAMIAN FOXALL’S SOLO BISCAY SWIM

Of course, people immediately point out that the Figaro Solo race has been in Ireland since, and will be here again in Kinsale this summer. But a special deal has been worked out whereby the Figaro boats are in effect being guided and protected by a flotilla of good shepherds. Maybe so, yet we recall that when our own Damian Foxall fell overboard from his Figaro boat racing across the Bay of Biscay some years ago, it was the next racer in line who picked him up, followed by a merry chase to re-unite him with his mount to go on for quite a decent placing. But it was all done without any help from the supposedly attendant sea shepherd boats.

Damian Foxall – when you take an unplanned swim in the Bay of Biscay, that’s when you really know just who are the real sea shepherds

Be that as it may, the last time a solo sailor got away with a fully publicised round Ireland challenge, it was Belgium’s Michael Kleinjans in a Class 40 in 2005. In doing it in an hour over four days, he wrested the title from Ireland’s Mick Liddy, who’d set a new solo record in a First 40 earlier the same year. After Kleinjans, the Irish coastal “solo verboten” position was made clear. But in 2006, there was a happy outcome, as Liddy and Kleinjans teamed up for the two-handed division in the Round Britain and Ireland and won.

RE-FOCUS ON TWO-HANDED RECORDS

Meanwhile, in Ireland, people were now re-focusing on two-handed records, and the four days and two hours time set by Galway’s Aodhan FitzGerald and Yannick Lemonnier in the 2004 Round Ireland Race in a Figaro acquired new significance. For 12 years, it was the time to beat, finally bested by Michael Kleinjans with his Class 40 in the 2016 Round Ireland Race to bring the time down to 3 days, 22 hours and 43 Minutes.

Tom Dolan collecting some well-earned prizes in France, which is a world apart from the rest of global sailing

2016 was of course also the year in which the MOD 70s and Rambler 88 broke all the open records in the Round Ireland race, with the MOD 70s finishing in such a tight finish that Lloyd Thornburg had another go using the WSSRC course from the Kish, knocking an hour or so off the time obtained five weeks earlier at Wicklow by Oman. Thus, for now the things are pretty much closed off at the top end of the size scale, but the two-handed challenge is very much open, and so too would be the solo record were it only possible.

TOM DOLAN HAVING IT BOTH WAYS

So it seems that Tom Dolan is trying to have it both ways. As far as the World Sailing Speed Record Council and the rest of humanity is concerned, he is on a two-handed challenge to best the 3 days 19 hours 41 minutes set so brilliantly by Pamela Lee and Cat Hunt in a Figaro 3 in October 2020.

But as far as sailing’s big following in France is concerned, he is sailing solo, as the cameraman with him is supposed to be only a recorder of events. Thus the Dolan challenge is against the Kleinjans single-handed time of 2005, which explains why the track chart shows how well (or not) Dolan is doing against the comparative Kleinjans times (admittedly in a bigger boat) 18 years ago.

Tom Dolan with his Figaro 3 in conditions when the foils are of doubtful benefit

Pam Lee and Cat Hunt head south on their way to the record in October 2020, with the foils definitely earning their keep

Meanwhile, in looking at the overall situation with regard to the direction in which the Dolan challenge took on the Round Ireland project in a certain weather pattern, the Irish sailing community are simply sitting back and thinking of our greatest aviator. The one and only Wrong Way Corrigan. Professor Google will tell you all about Wrong Way Corrigan. His wonderful story puts a positive spin on going the wrong way. Alas, that may not be the outcome this time round for l’Irlandais Volante.

Even a Figaro 3 at times simply has to plod to windward just like the rest of us – Pam Lee and Cat Hunt having a slow time transiting the North Coast in October 2020

As for those of you who have become Round Ireland Record Addicts, this Afloat.ie story from November 14th 2020 gives you something more to chew on, and we’ll continue to carry Tom Dolan updates from time to time.

Most of us thought that all Round Ireland Sailing Records at the lower end of the size scale had been long since put to bed. After all, it was way back in 1961 that Kevin & Colm MacLaverty with Mick Clarke in the Belfast Lough 18ft LOA Waverley OD had put down the marker for the smallest keelboat. Then in 1976, James Cahill of Clew Bay in Mayo went round in a semi-open 13ft 6ins clinker-built sailing dinghy. Following that, in the early 1990s, Rob Henshall of Fermanagh went round totally unaccompanied on a Bic Sailboard and then – again unaccompanied – in a Laser.

More recently, two more Lasers have made the solo circuit, but with support afloat for Gary “Ted” Sargent of Howth in 2016, and with shore support for Richard Hayes of Galway in 2018, while in 2015 the Ogden brothers from Baltimore had added a new dimension by making the minimum 704-mile venture in a Drascombe.

But with the advent of foilers, there are fresh areas of Ireland-girdling in small and ultra-small craft to conquer, and in Carlingford Lough where the Louet-Feisser family from The Netherlands pioneered the revival of the oyster fishery, they relaxed by also pioneering windsurfing in all its forms, with the patriarch Peter Louet-Feisser becoming an Irish champion in several disciplines.

These days it is his son Hannes who is setting the pace on the boards, and at a family gathering he mused on the possibility of going round Ireland solo on a windfoiler, as for some years he had shown himself a master of this new sailing form.

Getting the hang of it. The year is 2018, and Hannes Louet-Feisser is having his first year with a windfoiler in Carlingford Lough. Photo: Oisin van Gelderen

His father didn’t allow him to let the idea go by, and this year they’ve quietly done it. There has been enough publicity to raise €13,000 and counting for the RNLI, yet without so much razzmatazz that some coastal authorities might have been spurred into wondering if it all complied with every obscure corner of our seagoing regulations, which are made even more complex by Ireland’s meandering coastline – they say there are 7,500 kilometres if you go into every inlet in reasonable detail – being covered by two jurisdictions.

It’s a family thing…Hannes Louet-Feisser and his father Peter

But now with more than a month elapsed since the circuit was completed, we can look at it all more calmly, and the statistics and reality are remarkable. For although Hannes – who is the fittest 51-year-old you’re ever likely to meet – had huge support from shore teams led by Gene O’Hara of Newry with his colleagues at the Carlingford Oyster Company running a series of land-travelling support rotas, the fact is that there are vast tracts of the Irish coastline which are inaccessible to any road system, and thus when the lone foiler set out into the wide blue yonder, he was totally reliant on his own abilities and stamina, often for very long periods

The Hannes Louet-Feisser Ireland-circling achievement in its essentials. There’s now one change – the figure raised has gone through the €13,000 mark, and you can add to it through justgiving.com/fundraising/windfoilroundireland

He sailed a French-built Tabu windfoil setting a Dutch-made Gaastra sail, and while this is a potent combination in a usable breeze, the reality is the requirement for foiling board shape provide a bit of a clunker if there is not enough pressure to get up and flying, as the ever-so-wonderful foil with wings can be a real drag in light airs.

But when the going is good, it is very very good indeed. And it got off to a flying start, with the first day’s passage being 170km south from Carlingford to Bray and then on to the first overnight at Wicklow.

Hannes made a point of always being comfortably ashore before dark, but his options were broadened by not needing a harbour or even a recognized landing place. If a handy beach was available, he could get himself safety on land with his actions dictated in the first instance by not doing any damage to the foil, and then by the ease – or not – with which he could link up with his shore squad.

With the chosen landing-place selected, the challenge was getting ashore without damaging the foil

Every so often, a landing place would provide a site where an impressive but very temporary shore base could be provided…

…….then next day it would be off again, very much on his own

Every so often they would find an ideal set-up where a good beach and a spacious vehicle-parking site made it look like they were all having a relaxed holiday, but for much of the time this was a high-alert continually-planning venture.

And as for the powers of endurance required, they’re beyond imagination. The man is so fit he can face seven hours of standing on a windfoil while sailing it to maximum advantage, and can manage it for a little longer if need be. The very large section of the general population which suffers from chronic back and skeletal joint problems can only wonder and marvel at a 51-year-old who can confidently take on such a challenge, and then maintain the mind-set to see it through to the end.

Wind power in two very diverse forms off the Wexford coast as the Carlingford Round Ireland Challenge makes good progress while leaving no trace 

Interacting with the wonders of the Irish coast in sailing across a sea forest at Ballinskelligs in County Kerry. The non-compromising shape of the board seen here reveals why it was so important to have enough wind pressure to get up on the foil.

But as it happens, it’s second nature for such people build up teams of supporters, and if the main player is at a low point psychologically, or simply worn out, the supporters are worth their weight in gold, making it a group effort in which, nevertheless, there is just the one clearcut star.

Kit and team after a safe landing on a remote Connacht beach

Back to the modern world – the lone foiler meets commerce in the shape of a bulk super-carrier

The quality and achievement of this unique sailing circuit of Ireland - sweetly leaving no trace whatever - is difficult for even the most experienced sailor to grasp. But just what it means to non-sailors is beyond our powers to guess. So we leave it to Elaine Ingram of the Newry Reporter to give a comprehensive overview of how it all looked from land when the project came to a successful conclusion back home in Carlingford.

The definite view from land by Emily Ingram in the Newry Reporter.

The all-categories Round Ireland two-handed sailing record-holders, Greystones' Pamela Lee and shipmate Catherine Hunt, have been nominated as contenders for the Team of the Year Prize 2020 by HerSport.ie, thereby renewing sailing's position at centre stage in national womens' sport.

When the determined duo headed south in the early morning light of Tuesday 13th October to start across the official Round Ireland Record Line from the Kish Lighthouse to Dun Laoghaire pierhead with their foiling Figaro 3 Iarracht Maigeanata provided by RL Sailing, their only stated aim was to establish a competitive time for a 700-mile round Ireland circuit by a two-handed female crew, as such a thing didn't exist at the time.

When the going was good………steady fast sailing like this was great for record-making, but the round Ireland challenge will always include a menu of frustrations to be overcome

But when they swept back across that same line again in the small hours of Saturday, October 17th, their time of 3 days 19 hrs 41 mins 39s proved to be a new all-categories two-handed record, as they'd bettered the previous best – an all-male two-handed crew in a larger Class 40 – by three hours and two minutes.

It had been a tough sail, with total-concentration hard-driving interrupted by occasional frustrating calms. And while the Irish sailing community following them every inch of the way on Yellowbrick tracker would have been well pleased if they'd got round within four days, a final mad sprint through the dark down the North Channel and Irish Sea to the finish put them very firmly into the record books across all listings.

Commenting on their nomination, Pamela Lee said yesterday evening: "We're very proud to have been able to bring sailing and offshore sailing in particular into this conversation for 2020 – may it be the first of many".

The determined duo. Cat Hunt and Pam Lee proved to be the ideal double team throughout a carefully-orchestrated challenge

The new Round Ireland Two-handed Record Holders, RL Sailing's Pamela Lee of Greystones SC and Catherine Hunt, are acclaimed as October's "Sailors of the Month" after a superbly-executed circuit of our island home which went way beyond their initial challenge of establishing a significant speed for a female two-handed crew.

Their time of 3 days 19 hours and 45 minutes in the Figaro 3 Iarracht Maigeantata was not only many hours clear of previous comparable circuits by any crews of two-handed sailors, but was impressively close to record times set by fully-crewed larger boats - and it was all done so stylishly that this was sailing as performance art.

Read more on this record here

Early tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, the foiling Figaro 3 Magenta Project - double-handed by Greystone's Pamela Lee and Cat Hunt - will blast south from the official Round Ireland Records line, which is eight miles long between the Kish Lighthouse and the Dun Laoghaire East Pier Lighthouse. And when they return in due course - coming in from the north - they'll at the very least have established the Female Two-handed Round Ireland Record, for the simple reason that at the moment it doesn't exist.

In time, this record will acquire increasing significance. So the official Round Ireland Records Commissioner Chris Moore has secured the use of the DBSC Committee Boat Freebird through the good offices of Commodore Jonathan Nicholson, and he'll be stationed on the long line at the optimum position, which is in the region of the South Burford Buoy.

What Chris Moore and his COVID-19-compliant team are precision timing is much more than just an attempt by two determined co-skippers to get round Ireland in one piece in everything that October's weather has to throw at them. For it happens that, at the moment, the weather is shaping up very well for an impressive circuit speed which could stand as the record for many years.

As they zoom down the east coast of Ireland through Tuesday morning, the fresh to strong nor'wester is expected to veer and freshen further, and it should be veering even more as they head along the south coast as Wednesday moves in. It may then ease as they sweep past the Fastnet and find themselves reaching in an easterly in the early stages of the west coast, but a new veering means the disturbed waters of the Atlantic will provide the challenge of continuing to sail fast in a period of very favourable sou'easterly, yet without breaking boat or crew in the inevitable confused seas.

Cat Hunt (left) and Pamela Lee are facing into volatile October weather that might provide the magic formula for a formidable round Ireland time

Unfortunately late on Thursday what is now a sou'easter is forecast to back, and in time they may find themselves with a dead beat along the North Coast. But a further backing could ease things once Inishtrahull is passed, and they might just find themselves with a beam reach in an easterly from Rathlin down past the South Rock and on back to Dublin Bay.

It may be a clean slate challenge, but with the weather in such an "interesting" and inevitably volatile sequence, any sailor will find it fascinating to follow, particularly the thousands who have now sailed round Ireland - whether racing, cruising or straightforwardly record-breaking – and are well aware of the special challenges which a sailing circuit of our island home can pose.

And though comparisons with established times set in the biennial Round Ireland Race from Wicklow – one of the highest-profile coronavirus-cancelled events from the 2020 programme – have to take into account that it's over a marginally different course and is a set-time happening, nevertheless delving into its records comes up with some fascinating figures.

In the Wicklow Round Ireland, the two-handed division was first introduced in 2004, and it had a rocket-assisted launching, as Yannick Lemonnier (now of Quantum Sails in Galway) and Aodhan Fitzherald (of Galway, but they were racing DoDingle) secured one of the then-new Figaro 2s designed by Marc Lombard, and they streaked round to win the two-handers (and beat many others) in just 102 hours.

Mark Mansfield and Yannick Lemonnier of Quantum Sails. Since 2004, Yannick Lemonnier with Galway's Aodhan FitzGerald, now of the Martine Institute, have held the Two-Handed Round Ireland Record within the Round Ireland Race structure.

The most astonishing part of that performance was from The Blaskets to Rathlin Island, sailed in just 24 hours in even more sou'wester then they might have liked. Indeed, Yannick's recollection is of trying to hold back Aodhan – one of the most easy-going people you could meet ashore - as he sailed like a man possessed along Ireland's two most challenging coastlines in just one day, with his co-skipper – no stranger to hard driving himself - having to hold him back now and again.

It was a crewing dynamic which saw DoDingle logging 270 miles "daylight sight to sight", they'd a top speed of 23.5kts, and for a long period were averaging 17-18kts.

Having helped in establishing a two-handed record which still stands, Aodhan Fitzgerald was back into Wicklow from Galway with the fully-crewed First 40.7 Ireland West in 2008, and they won overall. Meanwhile, Yannick has since been ever more deeply into the two-handed scene, and particularly the promotion of the Mini 650 class in Ireland.

Although the father-and-son team of Derek and Conor Dillon from Foynes with the Dehler 34 Big Deal have been regular top performers in the two-handed division, in the last outing in 2018 it was Yannick Lemonnier and Cathal Clarke of Galway (a crewman with Aodhan Fitzgerald in 2008's win) with the Mini 650 Port of Galway who led the Minis (and many others), getting round in 5 days 16 hours and 30 minutes.

It was an impressive showing in what had been a difficult race, but it was still a very long way from the Lemonnier-Fitzgerald blitz of 2004. Admittedly that was in a bigger boat, but two-handed round Ireland in four days and six hours was and is quite something, and while the developing weather pattern is looking good for Magenta Project, sailing round Ireland in record time is never easy.

Sometime after October 12, British skipper Cat Hunt and Greystones, County Wicklow sailor Pamela Lee aim to sail a Figaro Bénéteau III racing yacht around Ireland, in an attempt to set the first record for an all-female, doublehanded sailing circumnavigation.

They are undertaking the challenge in partnership with The Magenta Project, a collective set up to support women at the highest level of sailing.

The two sailors are taking on this challenge with the hope of inspiring girls in Ireland and the UK to move into offshore sailing after graduating from dinghies and to aspire to skippering large boats.

The offshore circumnavigation of Ireland is approximately 700 nautical miles, which will take about five days and nights.

Hunt and Lee say they wanted to set this record as an all-female crew, to demonstrate that women are not part of the shorthanded and fully crewed offshore sailing scene just because of a mixed crew requirement, with the likes of the Olympic and Ocean Race rules, but because they are strong, motivated sailors in their own right.

“Shorthanded racing is a great discipline because it demands that each skipper is skilled in all aspects of offshore sailing – from navigation to helming and sail trimming,” says Hunt, a 21 a 21-year-old British sailor, focused on offshore shorthanded sailing

“It is fantastic for females to be involved in particular because it offers opportunities to learn and take the lead onboard that are often harder for women to fulfil on a fully crewed boat, where roles are more compartmentalised.” says,  Lee a co-skipper with RL Sailing, an Irish team formed with Kenneth Rumball.

“There is talent, enthusiasm and potential among young, female sailors in Ireland and the UK, but often a lack of awareness about the avenues for participation for women,” say the skippers. “We hope our record attempt will help to break down some of the stereotypes, related to accessibility and male dominance, and will generate excitement – encouraging other girls to get out and try to break the record we set!”

From France to Ireland

Following delivery of the boat from Lorient, France the hub of offshore sailing and a quarantine period in Ireland, from the 12 October they will be ready and waiting to set sail, once a suitable window materialises. professional navigator will be working alongside them to find the optimum window.

Record Route

The original plan for Iarracht Maigeanta (Éire) was to follow the classic route of the biennial Round Ireland Race. That route begins off Wicklow Sailing Club and heads south, keeping Ireland and all its islands and rocks to starboard (to the right of the boat). However, soon after the launch of the record bid, the girls switched to the World Sailing Record route that begins and ends off the Kish light on Dublin Bay and can be navigated either north or south about, as Afloat reports here.

As there are only two of them and they will be sailing without stopping for up to five days and nights, they will run a two-hour rotation of being ‘on watch’ (so the longest break each will have over the duration of the journey for rest, sleep or food will be two hours). A watch needs to be maintained at all times not only for safety reasons, but because there are constant adjustments required to maintain speed and react to changing weather conditions. The skippers will also work together as a team on deck whenever manoeuvres such as sail changes are required.